Bear Country, Emmett's Story
by Allegra Russo
Summary: This is the story of how Emmett was mauled by a bear as I see it. Note: This story was written after being inspired by SarahxEmmett's story: Darkest Hours. Go to her page to read it. It's excellent. Reviews are much appreciated.


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*Author's note*: I do not own Twilight, and this story was also inspired by another fanfictioner on here, SarahxEmmett. Go here to read her story: .net/s/4945193/1/Darkest_Hours. :)

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"Mom loves you more, you know," Jacob said simply, eyes sparkling.

"Naww." I ran my fingers through my hair, looking my older brother in the eyes.

"But Dad likes me more." He grinned, mischievous.

"Okay, _Esau_, have it your way."

"You know why?" Jacob continued, ignoring my joke. He always did. I sighed.

"Why, Jacob?"

"Because I'm the stronger one!"

I growled and leapt at him, knocking over several of my father's favourite trophies, and my brother stepped simply out of the way. I finally grasped him, and we struggled to the ground together, wrestling for the upper hand. It had always been this way. Jacob would compliment me, grin mischievously, then turn it around on himself and tear me down again. I had learned long ago to just take it, to tell him what he wanted to hear. It was just easier. Somehow, this time was different. I was tired of being called weak by everyone.

And, no, _everyone_ was not an overstatement. My teachers called me weak when I couldn't answer a question at school, my brother called me weak when he beat me at yet another sport, my father called me weak when I moped and cried because of it. My mother thought I was weak, too, even though she had never said it aloud. She didn't need to. She liked me because of it. I think it was the fact that it seemed like I needed taking care of. My mother loved to take care of things. But I was tired of being taken care of. With every punch I threw at my brother, I vowed that from now on, I would always be strong.

* * *

"Why, I oughta cancel the hunting trip!" As my father yelled at my brother and I, I turned away slightly, trying to lessen the blow of his words. I just wish he would stop. Wasn't a half hour long enough?

"Now, I can't do that, because I know how much Michael is looking forward to it." He continued. "In no way does this mean that you're off the hook, though. One week of hard labour on the farm after this, you hear?" As if he could smell the fear, he turned towards me, squaring his shoulders. "Come on, Emmett. Live up to your name. I thought you were stronger than this." He shook his head disgustedly, walking away.

His disappointment stung far more than the belt he could have given me. I didn't know why he chose not to hit me this time, for I knew he wanted to. Probably mother trying to protect me again. I clenched my jaw as I saw my father drape his arm across my brother's shoulders, all wrongs forgotten as they discussed the plans for tomorrow. Their laughter provided an unwanted topping on the evening, like having too much icing on a cake. As usual, my mother came out, a smile on her face, plate of fresh cookies in hand, ready to comfort me.

"Not now, ma." I said, brushing her off and trudging to my room, shutting the door gently behind me. I did not cry that night.

* * *

Bright and early, that was when we liked to do things in my house. Normally I was agitated by my family cheery smiles at this ungodly hour, but today was different. Today, I was up before anyone else, including the sun, ready to finally prove myself to everyone. I gathered my stuff and had it all ready in the truck for when we had to leave. Dad got up soon after, and he looked surprised, pleased, even, that I was already up. Maybe I imagined it. His next observation prompted me to believe so.

"Aw, dammit, Emmett, did you have to put the bags in the truck? We were gonna take Mike's car. Great. Now we're gonna have to move it _all_ around again."

He slammed the door before I even had the chance to apologize. What was the big deal, anyway? All I'd really done was move everything closer to the final destination. I guess to my father, it was like doing things twice for no reason. Why move the bags multiple times when you could do it all at once, with one trip? The event of my birth proved that he preferred not to do the same thing multiple times.

Jacob got up next, shoveling bread into his mouth as if he hadn't eaten in days.

"Woah, easy there, Jake." Mom had just risen to see us off. We all knew she had been up since I had woken, but she liked to pretend for all of us that she didn't have trouble sleeping. It had gotten worse with the pregnancy. She hugged me tighter than the rest, her swollen belly gently pressing against mine. The baby inside, my future sister kicked slightly, and I knew she was hugging me too, in her own little way. For some reason, I felt like staying here with mom and the baby, to protect them. But I pulled away, knowing I had to be strong for her, for the rest of the family, for the world.

As we drove away, there she was, smiling and waving at us like we'd be gone forever. I sat back, chuckling to myself and letting the mindless chatter engulf the car. We were moving fairly fast, 30 km. My father's friends always tended to be a bit reckless. I didn't mind. It was a nice change from him and his stifling nature. Just being in the same kilometer radius as him would make anyone feel suffocated. He could be relaxed sometimes, but even my brother had to admit that there was always that air of uptightness around him. The rest of the car trip passed rather uneventfully, and as I clambered out of the car with the others, I worried that the hunt would be as boring.

* * *

The race was on. Flying through the woods at the heels of the others, this trip was far from boring. We had already caught the trail of a pack of deer, and were racing headlong towards them at a breakneck speed, bloodlust running high. I don't know when, or how I succumbed to the thrill of the hunt, but I was sure that at some point today, I realized that this is what I love. Maybe it was when we first pulled the guns out of their cases. Maybe it was when I had spotted the deer markings before anyone else. Perhaps it was just now, when I could practically smell the victory in the air. Darkness fell all too quickly, and we had to set up camp. We were only human after all, and had to sleep. I was reluctant to give the animals so much of a head start, but then again, the needed rest too.

* * *

We rose as early as the first day, and I loved it. Sleep felt unnecessary. As the sun had reached it's zenith in the sky, I was no more tired than when I had woken up this morning. Dad noticed. "You're rather enthusiastic." he said, patting me on the back. "You're doing a good job, son." He was finally proud of me. I had finally done something to make him praise me. I was on top of the world. So, naturally, when they needed someone to go ahead through the brambles and see where the deer had gone, I gladly volunteered my services. As soon as I was through the thicket, though, fright gripped me. I realized I would soon be alone in a mountain range I didn't know.

Luckily, I saw some deer scat under a nearby tree. I followed the trail until I was at a small brook. It trickled out of sight somewhere in the distance, leading into another world I didn't yet know, still another place I had yet to explore. I had time. But I wasn't thinking of that right now. The only thing running through my mind was that I had failed. I could no longer see or smell any trace of deer. All I could think was that I would have to go back to my father and brother and tell them that I had lost the trail. Their faces surfaced vividly in my mind, disappointment apparent in every line. A few temper tantrums and a hissy fit later, the brook long behind me, there was still no sign of the deer.

Father was going to hate me now. I mean really hate me. Not only had I gotten lost, delaying the trip by probably days, but I had also lost the gun he lent me. The brook had claimed it a few hours ago, when I had slipped on a mossy rock trying to cross it. The worst part of that little "adventure" was that I had had to watch the gun disappear into the horizon, while I frantically scrambled to free my foot from the mud at the bottom of the river. Now I looked like a drowned rat. A drowned rat with not a scrap of dignity left. A low growl could be heard in the distance, followed by a long, tortured bellow. The wind picked up, sending a chilling breeze through my bones. It was as if nature was picking up on the tension in the air. That was when I decided to "set up camp" for the day.

* * *

Camp consisted of lying down on the softest place in the direct vicinity, which was still as comfortable as lying on a bed of syringes. Because of this, I was up long before dawn again. I could see a habit forming here. Just then, my stomach grumbled. Not that that was a surprise. It had been bothering me since just after I had left the group. I hadn't eaten in nearly 24 hours. Picking up anything in the forest was far too dangerous, and it wasn't like I had actually listened in class when we went over this kind of stuff. "It could change your life!" My teachers would insist. Now, I desperately wished I had put off bothering Jeanie Strauss to listen.

The bushes rustled impatiently behind me, and I turned quickly, hoping for food. Oh. A bear cub. I sighed heavily. As if that would help me now. Even if I could bring myself to kill a baby animal, I had nothing to do it with, since my gun was probably hundreds of miles from me now. Also, I had no idea if bear meat was actually edible. My stomach grumbled again, making the decision for me. I needed food. My hand grasped a large stone tightly in my hand as I moved tentatively towards the cub. He just looked so helpless there, playing with a leaf and looking up at me occasionally, completely trusting. Did I really want to break that trust?

I couldn't do it. My hand swung down to my side, and the cub crawled over to me, his eyes gazing up innocently as if asking millions of questions at once. For some reason, I felt connected to this cub. As peculiar as it sounded, it was as if he (or she) was trying to tell me something. I shook my head. Living next to the Natives had gotten to my head. I better be careful. With the way I was thinking, pretty soon I'll be asking mother to make me clothes out of beaver pelt and holding pow-wows in our bomb shelter.

Maybe it was the forest that was making me this way, all dreamy and spiritual-like. It seemed almost magical. The trees around me were lush, full of promise and the landscape carved itself so beautifully that I doubted if nature could have constructed it all by itself. After all, that's what God was here for. Or else it was the hunger lapsing my judgment. Yes, probably that. It was time to say goodbye to the bear cub so I could find some other source of sustenance. I picked it up in my arms, making my way into the brush that lined the meadow.

An abrupt growl from behind almost had me dropping the fragile child. I turned around, freezing in my tracks when I beheld the sight in front of me. Both magnificent and terrifying, a rather large grizzly bear had just appeared in the clearing. Okay, so "rather large" was a bit of an understatement. When it brought itself up to it's full height, it was about 3 heads taller than me, and twice as wide. The cub began to scramble around in my arms at the sight of what must be it's mother. Oh, shit. I was a dead man. My sulphurous vocabulary briefly contaminated the air, until I was no longer able to breathe on account of being pinned to a rock. All I could see was a massive hairy forearm attached to a fearsome set of claws.

I didn't have much time to admire them, though, before they were searing across my face. The bear bellowed as my blood decorated the meadow, glinting in the sunlight, terrorizing me. I let out a bellow of my own now, hoping for anyone, anything to hear my cry and come save me from this torture, to take me home, where I was finally realizing I belonged after all.

To say that my life flashed before my eyes was an overstatement. However, the people in my life came to me vividly. My mom, my dad, my brother, my grandparents, my friends from school, my soon-to-come baby sister. All the things I had said to them, could have said to them, would have done with them, if only I had been given more time. Time, and warning. But life didn't work that way. My body tried to writhe in pain, but my arms and legs were pinned. I choked and sputtered on something salty, something that spurted out of my chest as the mother bear struck again. The pain of having a 250 pound bear on me was enough to send me screaming, but the added bites, slashes and blows redefined my definition of agony.

_Agony: .y: noun: An intense pain of mind or body. _

Yeah, fuck you, Webster's dictionary. Obviously whoever wrote it had never experienced any agony of their own. It should have read:

_Agony: .y: noun: A burning, searing pain one endures that makes them wish they were never born. It renders the victim incapable of thinking of anything but the anguish. _

There. I could have been a dictionary writer if I wasn't about to die. Or a pilot. A soldier. A scientist. A writer. A farmer. My thoughts chilled, if only for an instant. A farmer. Like my father. _With _my father.

That second of static thought was all it took for my body to stop fighting, my mind to give up. I was shutting down. As I slipped under, I could've sworn I heard a voice, clear and smoldering. An angel.

* * *

_Emmett's dad's POV:(past tense)_

I was desperate. My son. My youngest son. He was out here somewhere, I knew it. And I was going to find him even if it killed me. I didn't care if nobody helped me look, but was surprised, and eternally grateful when Jacob and Michael woke up, just as frantic as I was, ready to look. They never complained, and they did their best to help me. They even went above and beyond that, constantly whispering words of encouragement, urging me to keep looking, that we would find him eventually. They never slept, either, or rested, even, simply because I didn't. If it weren't for them, I might have collapsed a lot sooner. But nobody, not even the people I had known all my life, could have prepared me for the sound I had heard that day. It still haunts me at night sometimes.

When Michael found footprints furrowed into the dirt, I felt hope for the first time in 24 hours. Even going on no sleep, I couldn't contain myself from jumping for joy a little. Then there was a roar from a bear in the distance. Somehow, I don't know how, but I knew. A fainter, but just as chilling, scream reached us next, not long after I had started running. I didn't even know if I was going in the right direction, but I knew that I had to get to that bear fast. Looking back, I wished I had done so many things I hadn't. Not just that day, but for Emmett's whole life. I regret everything I ever said to him, everything I never said to him, just, everything. Michael and Jacob took off after me, but after a while, they couldn't keep up.

They told me that it was not humanely possible that I could've run any faster, but I think they were wrong. I could've done more. And maybe if I did, I wouldn't have had to see what I saw. Blood was scattered across the meadow as if a jar of it had been thrown at the ground. Emmett's clothing, barely recognizable, strewn across a large boulder where most of the blood was concentrated. The worst part was I didn't even see the body. I could only guess. But as I turned, I could've sworn I saw a flash of long blond hair rush past me.

It wasn't as though I was seeing properly by that point, anyways. Michael and Jacob had finally caught up, but they were in no position to console me either. I saw the shock register on their faces and I could feel that they knew it too. They froze. Neither of them could offer any more words of encouragement, any consolation, anything to try to help me. They just stood there, staring blankly ahead, as I clutched at my youngest son's bloodstained clothing, crying. I didn't stop for 2 hours. I would have cried more if I had any more liquid in me, but it hurt too much. Despite this, I didn't have it in me to stop. I couldn't have even if I tried. Every time I thought I could stop, a horrible fact loomed in my mind. I had never told Emmett I loved him. Never. Not once. What was the point in having dignity? I didn't have my son.

Nobody in the family was ever the same after that. Jacob, formerly the comedic relief in the family, became depressed. He wouldn't help with the farm, he wouldn't play any sports, he wouldn't date any girls. To him, those were things that Emmett should be doing. And if his brother couldn't do them, he wouldn't, either. I did not work for half a year. The crops weeded, we lost all our money, the place went into near ruins. My wife sat in her room crying. It pained me to see that I had caused this grief. We separated from the church, too. We just couldn't believe that any good God would take our son from us so soon, for no good reason. It just wasn't fair, and we refused to kneel for someone who has tortured us so cruelly.

But then, after we had all given up hope, a light came to us in the form of a beautiful baby girl. Natalie. We dedicated our lives and souls to caring for her, and by doing so, we healed ourselves. I worked day and night to harvest the farm so that we could have money again to nurture her. Jacob fixed up the house, went back to school, got into university, all for Natalie. He decided that if he were her, he'd want to have a brother to be proud of. And make her proud he did. He became one of the most sought-after doctors in America. And as for my wife, she never stopped smiling. We think that maybe, God reconsidered us, and gave us the most wonderful gift of all. If I could thank Emmett for one thing, it would be for making all of us better people. And you know what else? I love you, son.


End file.
